A new customer walks through your door for about two dollars.
Someone nearby buys their friend a treat at your shop. The friend walks in to claim it, meets your staff, and usually buys something else while they are standing there. You pay for the treat only when that actually happens.
A stranger becomes a regular, and you only pay when they show up. Not a deal hunter: a friend picked your shop for them.
Someone was thinking about them, and there is proof waiting at your counter. Free, no app, usually with a day to meet there.
Do the math yourself
Not one number on this page is ours. Move both sliders to your shop and the answer is yours, whatever it turns out to be.
Your cost, not your menu price. Roughly: a drip coffee lands near 40 cents, a small scoop with the cup near 80, a pastry somewhere past a dollar. Only you know yours.
This is a hard cap. When they're gone, the campaign stops.
Cost per new customer, through your door
$2.15
Worst month, because that is what you pay if every single gift gets claimed. If half of them do, you paid for half the treats. You are never billed for a treat nobody walked in for.
Now put that next to what you're already paying.
These are published 2026 industry numbers, not ours. Look them up.
for a single post
A post. Some views. No way to know if one person walked in.
of every order, forever
Effectively 25% to 40% once promos and refunds land. And the app owns the customer, not you.
average cost per conversion, food and beverage
A conversion counted online. Getting them off the phone and into the shop is still on you.
per person standing at your counter
A real human, in your shop, sent by someone who already likes you. Zero commission on the sale.
Influencer rates: Influencer Marketing Hub, 2026. Delivery commissions: Rezku, 2026. Meta ads cost per acquisition: Digital Applied Q1 2026 benchmarks.
The whole price
Flat. No commission on the sale, no percentage of the ticket, no fee per gift, no setup cost. The treats are your own product cost and nothing more.
- ✓A cap you cannot blow throughWhen the gifts are gone the campaign stops. No way to overspend by accident.
- ✓Your shop promoted on every giftAddress, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and website on every screen a sender and a recipient sees.
- ✓A counter screen staff learn in a minuteA PIN and a scan, on any phone or tablet you already own.
- ✓Zero commission on the saleThey usually buy something else while they are standing there. All of that is yours.
Founding shops
The first ten shops go free for sixty days.
No card, no contract, nothing to cancel. I set the campaign up with you, I am there for the first redemption, and I show you the numbers every week. After sixty days it is $150 a month if you want to keep it. If it did not bring anyone through your door, you should not pay for it.
Claim a founding spot
Set your shop up in about ten minutes.
Do it yourself, standing behind your own counter. No call, no card, no salesperson. I read every application the same day and I will ring you before your campaign goes live.
Ten founding spots. Jersey City and Hoboken first. Or email hello@spreadthelove.app and I will come to you.
Everything else shops ask me.
Open whichever one you were about to ask. Skip the rest.
Is this just a coupon in a nicer font?The Groupon question+
It is a fair worry and you should have it. Line by line:
What stops people abusing it?Fraud and freeloaders+
Ask this hard. A shop that cannot answer it ends up rationing at the counter, which is worse than not running the campaign. Every control, in the order it fires:
- ✓Nobody can gift themselvesWe match sender against recipient on both email and phone, ignoring the tricks: dots in a Gmail address, a plus-tag on the end, a country code on the front.
- ✓One treat per person, then a waitYou set the cooldown and sixty days is the default, so there is no repeat deal for anyone to farm.
- ✓A hard cap, enforced twiceOnce when a gift is created and again inside the database at the counter, in the same locked transaction that marks it redeemed. Your cap cannot be raced past.
- ✓Every code works exactly onceGift links are signed and burned on use. A screenshot passed around a group chat is worth nothing.
- ✓Speed limits on sendingCeilinged per person, per device, per network and per recipient. Real senders never notice. A script hits the wall immediately.
- ✓Only your staff can redeemRedemption needs a signed-in staff PIN, and a shop can only burn its own gifts. Holding the link does nothing.
- ✓Everything is on the recordEvery redemption is stamped with the time and the staff member who handed it over.
- ✓Burner inboxes refusedThrowaway email providers are turned away on the free lane.
None of this makes fraud impossible, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. It makes it not worth doing. The prize is one small item, there is no second one for two months, and your cap is the ceiling on the whole exercise no matter what anyone tries.
How does it actually work at the counter?Four steps, five seconds+
Why would it keep going after the first week?The part no ad can buy+
Every gift puts your shop in three conversations at once.
- The sender. Usually a local. They just used your shop to do something kind for someone they care about, so now they have a reason to like you. They did not have one last week.
- The friend. Walks in, gets handed something free by a human being, and very often pays for a second thing at the register.
- Everyone they tell. Getting a treat bought for you is the kind of small surprise people mention out loud and post.
And the friend who received one is the most likely person in the world to send the next one. Your campaign does not fade the way a boosted post does, it hands itself along, and the cap keeps it from ever costing more than you agreed to.
Does it promote my shop, or just yours?Instagram, TikTok, website+
Your address, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and website sit on your shop card while someone is choosing a gift, and again on the gift when it is unwrapped. We ask people to follow you and we tell them why it matters. Small shops cannot buy reach the way chains can, so we hand you ours. It costs nothing and it is on by default.
The short onesFive quick answers+
Then you paid for nothing but the platform. You are never charged for a treat that was not handed to a real person at your counter.
Completely. They are standing in your shop talking to your staff. We do not sit between you and them, we do not sell them anything, and we never resell your customer list.
There is one PIN and one button. If it takes longer than a minute to teach, I did it wrong.
Some will, and that is not the disaster it sounds like. They are already yours, they bring a friend in to claim it, and the cooldown stops it becoming a habit.
Month to month. Cancel whenever. No contract, no setup fee, no early termination anything.